Service is on the side of the house, cable goes around front to a peak located on the front of the house but near the meter side.

Township inspector fails the job for not clearing the driveway for 12ft height. No biggie, GPU comes out, and says if i put a new hook in, up and to the right, they will move the wire, since it's very heavy. Plenty of wire since i left it long. I put hook in.Today i get a call from a site engineer, they will NOT move the wire. And they want a 16ft. mast on the side of the house. And they want 18ft. of clearance for the road. No way in hell this house can get a mast of 16ft. That means i'd have to put 2 rigid pipes together, and with the distance, i don't care how many guide wires i use, in bad weather it's going to pull this pipe out.16ft. is like 7-8ft. higher than the roof on that side of the house (it will have to be through the sofit).

Besides, the whole street had Fed Pac panels so almost all are upgraded, all with low wiring, some so low you can touch them without a ladder.They insist, if a truck takes it out, it's going to be my fault, even though it if did happen it would take out all cable and telephone and most electrical services since they are all low, on the entire street.

It would be alot of work for me to undo my new work, and a $300 charge for the homeowner for a POA change.

BTW, the wire's lowest point on the street is now 16ft. (or close to it), and if i move the wire on the house it will go to about 17ft.

Would you move it? Or just keep argueing with them? I've had similar arguments with them, and the general conscensus around here is that they try and force homeowners to essentually pay for them to upgrade their (gpu) wiring. In the end, technically speaking, my job is complete when the town says it passes. And the town only wants me to add less than a foot over the driveway, which as i said is easy.When i put in for the cutting card, shouldn't gpu of told me about this?I love how they use site engineers that rarely leave the office.

The required clearance over a driveway is 12 ft. The utility is required to maintain 18 ft over a traveled road. One way they can meed this requirement is to install a pole on your side of the road. They may be unwilling to do this but you might try toget them to agree even if you had to help with the cost.

I had a service that was similar to what this sounds like, but my utility planer was a lot more helpful and reasonable.. I had to move a service because the HO decided to have a spa installed literally in front of his panel (you'd have to stand in it to work on the panel ) the triplex came from a pole in the rear alleyway which was up a slope from the house. The existing line was probably around 12' over the alley, along with the neighbors. SDG&E actually came and put a taller pole in, but I still had to have my riser about 7' above the roofline to maintain 3' clearance above the guesthouse in the back.. I used 3" rigid strapped to 4 pieces of shallow strut with wedge anchors into the house (The exterior of the house was brick.). Between going through the eve of the roof and the strut support, the 150' triplex drop didn't budge it.

Carefully explain you are following the NEC minimums, and willing to accept responcabilty for your work, like it sounds like you are. But I see thier point, although it say its OK, the day the 14' moving van pulls in the driveway it's over with...

Battle 'bot it out with them....

Install your own pole to clear the driveway, and swag it down to your service. (You could hang a nice light from it too.)

Install at the hieght they request, guy wire/support the best you can, and cross your fingers.

Do the same as above, and do this: I did it not long ago, and it worked well. Get a 16' X 3" Steel tube stock - weld brackets to it - bolt it to the framing of the house and support your mast and drop to it. Had conduit go through one roof-jack and massive steel pipe through the other.